greetings, and some sweet new cards ♥

Hullo poppets!

Well, as always, I'm buzzing about like a busy little bee, occasionally fitting in some much-needed gym time between ginger-cake quaffing, market merriment, manic drawing and mad-cat taming!

I shall in a week or so, fingers crossed, have a few new prints to show you. I'm working on colouring a series of drawings I started last year, and, quite typical to every stereotype about artistes, I am happy to keep you all in suspense a little longer until I finish them all for a grand unveiling! If you are on Facebook though, you can catch a few teasers either on my personal timeline, or the Grumpy Star Studio page.

In the meanwhile though, I've been attempting to develop my photography skills with some snaps of my brand-new Set of 5 Art Cards and Envelopes! You can snavel yourself a set of these for only AUD $10 on my Etsy Shop. They are blank inside, so perfect for any occasion, even just a special letter to put a smile on the face of someone you love!

All nice things,

Mel x



for the love of butter

We all have vices. Anyone who says they don't is either telling porky-pies of epic proportions or else dangerously deluded.

I've kicked my smoking habit more times than I care to remember, and a month ago for the last time. I have pretty much substituted this filthy habit with an addiction for gallons of tea, which isn't so bad except I drink way too much coffee as it is and am so immune to caffeine I can fall asleep half an hour after a cup of the stuff at midnight (I honestly do just love the taste and smell of it). Dave is an excellent cook and I've been known to polish off an entire cheesecake, unaided, in a weekend. This is basically my sole reason for a gym membership and running habit. It's a dirty vicious cycle.

Most vices answer to a kind of need I think, and some of us (me) just have addictive personalities. But there are some that fly their own little freak flag; dorky vices, not really malignant but that raise their weird little heads in public situations (or, as the case may be, on a blog) to make us blush and raise the eyebrows of those who love us best.

So I'll just come out with it: I love butter. I smother the most disgusting amount of the stuff on anything more solid than butter. I eat butter with crumpets on the side. Plonk a bucket of it on a mountain of pumpkin mash and I'm yours. It's an absolutely necessary ingredient for shortbread, which is incidentally, the perfect accompaniment to my tenth daily cup of tea. It smells amazing when it gets warm and melty. When my metabolism slows down and I need the help of two fat blokes and a winch to get me out of my chair, it will be for the love of butter!

Lewis Carroll very famously used the irony of the word 'butterfly' to brilliant effect in 'Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There', creating insects made from slabs of buttered toast, who live on weak tea with cream. This sort of butterfly would be wonderful I think, but I'd have to snatch a fair few of them to slake my butter-thirst! I wanted my own to be bigger and nice and drippy; kind of like a flying breakfast.

'brown-bread-and-buttered-flies' is available now in my Etsy Shop for you to gaze on while you munch thoughtfully on your breakfast. And, unlike real butter, this picture is calorie-free.

Blessed be those who love butter!

Mel x